How Do We Bless the Lord?

Covenant Baptist Church

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Children, I'm a little sick, so give me your best shot. I'm going to preach a little loud today, just to get over the, in there, so you may hear a little bit of, as I'm preaching this morning.

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The question is, now that we've finished 1 Samuel, is now what? Where do we go from here?

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Wait a second, I thought we were going to start in the Gospel of Mark. Is that where we are today? Why do

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I hear we're looking at Psalm 103? Well, actually, what's happening is we are taking a little bit of a break together,

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Josh and I, before we dive into the Gospel of Mark. We're very excited to do that.

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But the Gospel of Mark is unique in this, well, it's very much like John. There's not a nativity story in there, and as we approach

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Christmas, we thought, hey, what a great time to just preach some Advent, some Christmas -type sermons, and then get ready to launch us into the

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Gospel of Mark. Well, what that allows us to have is a couple of weeks where we go, well, now we can be a little topical.

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Now we can address, and really go before the Lord and say, God, what is it that you want your people to hear?

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We've been in kind of this series, and it has guided us so far, but what is it that your people need to hear?

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And so this week, I was struck with that question, now what? Now what?

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Where do we go? God, what do you want to say to your people? And I think it's an interesting question, because it's a question that everyone is asking at this point in our nation's history, as we've had a very historic election, big changes are on the horizon, and as I'm listening to lots of podcasts out there,

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I'm hearing people giving their now what, kind of, that's what people want to hear, and that's what the podcasters are giving them.

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So interesting, I listened to Doug Wilson, he had a podcast called

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Judgment, right? And it's no Shave November, but it's also no Quarter November for Doug, so he's hitting hard, right?

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And he's basically posing this, he's saying, okay, yeah, we have a new president, but our country is still under judgment.

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He's saying, yeah, I'm hoping that he's gonna change many things in our nation, and I have great hopes that he will, but there's one thing that he cannot change, and that is to address the problem that Saul had.

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Saul's great and impossible problem was that he had rejected God, and God had rejected him, and even though he cried out to God, God would not answer him.

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And so Doug was saying, you know, hey, our president could be a great distraction to our nation from dealing with the problem of our repentance.

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Also listen to the Ogden boys, Brian Sovey and Eric Kahn, and they were saying, hey, we have to take advantage of this change of leadership, and we need to build a kingdom of God, right?

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We need to build a kingdom of God because this is a great opportunity for us. And yet,

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I think that those are two great things that we should do, seeking repentance, praying to God to change our hearts, and maybe perhaps our judgment will be a temporary judgment like Nebuchadnezzar's was when he was struck and became a beast and lived like a beast for a while, and then

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God relented, and he was returned back to sanity. And Doug says maybe that's what we should be praying for, a temporary judgment.

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Last week, Josh kind of rang the bell of repentance, and even in the call to worship, which was just amazing, one of my favorite passages of Scripture where God says,

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I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, this is Ezekiel 33, 11, no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked would turn from his way and live.

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And he says, turn back, turn back from your evil ways. And the Hebrew word there is shuv, which means to turn, and he's saying, shuvu, shuvu.

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And not that we need to hear repentance, well, we could hear repentance every week, couldn't we? But these are, prayer and repentance seem to be these two basic things that are a duty and a call to this local body and to believers everywhere.

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And it began to make me think, what also are those fundamental things that, as we get caught up in changes in our country, that we need to continue to be faithful to do?

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And that's where I came to Psalm 103, that a core responsibility of the church is to bless

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God. Some claim that this is the most popular psalm in the whole

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Psalter, greater than Psalm 1, greater than Psalm 23, which

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I can't believe that Brady and I were just talking about how many dudes we see with Psalm 23 tattooed somewhere on them, right?

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Or Psalm 51, you know, David's great cry for forgiveness. Or even

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Psalm 139, isn't that great? You've formed me in my mother's womb, and such great psalms.

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And this one, some claim, it tends to rise us to the top.

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And perhaps it's because of that Matt Redman song. Bless the Lord, O my soul,

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O my soul, and worship His holy name.

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We sing like never before, O my soul,

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I'll worship Your holy name. And so maybe that's why, you know, it sticks in our mind, right?

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But what it is, and what makes it so wonderful and beautiful is the poetry that's involved, the imagery that is within this psalm.

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And it takes me back to my days in high school when, sitting in my English lit class,

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I would look at my teacher and go, I have no idea what we're reading in this poetry. I don't know what it's saying,

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I'm completely lost, right? Or sometimes when you hear a song on the radio and you're like, oh, I could just, I want to hear like those, go on YouTube and find, you know, where they're telling the story of how they wrote this song and what it means, because I have no idea what it means.

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And yet, and that's where I find myself this morning, is explaining to you the beauty of this poetry, the beauty of the imagery.

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And in fact, children, if you have your coloring sheets today, I would encourage you at some point to turn to the back, to the blank side, and draw some of the images that we are going to talk about today.

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And I would love to see them afterwards, okay? Weston, I know you always bring yours up here, so I want to see the images that we talk about today.

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Now, I have preached this sermon before, and I don't know how you feel about that. It's like, is

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Bart just calling it in this week? Actually, I did go back and I read my notes on my previous sermon, and I got to say,

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I was really disappointed. So I relish the opportunity today to go into this.

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It must have been one of those weeks that preachers have that you're just busy with so many things that you basically get up in the pulpit and you just read it, right?

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And in that, I mean, it's beautiful enough, it can stand on its own. But today, I was just really excited to have the chance to do it again.

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Charles Spurgeon says, Psalm 103 is the apple tree among the tree of the woods.

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Apple tree among the tree of the woods. Where did I put my phone? Kristen, do you have my phone over there?

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Is my phone there in the car? It's just going to keep me on time, or just going to let me know how over I go.

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But the kids are being great today. Hey, you guys are doing so good. So good. There we go. Okay.

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So it begins. Let's begin. Let's go to Psalm 103. Have your Bible in your hand. Hopefully, you can make some notes on here or draw some pictures as well, because the pictures are involved.

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So bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. This is the call. This is what

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David is preaching to us today, and he's going to say it over and over again from the beginning, and he's going to cap it off in the end.

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Bless the Lord, O my soul, baraki nefshi yet away, vechol kerevai et kadsho.

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That's what it sounds like. It's not Klingon. It's not Spanish. It is Hebrew. When he says, bless the

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Lord, he's commanding his soul. It is in the PL, and that means you have to expand, make the verb even more...have

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more strength. Surely, bless. Really, really, really bless the Lord, O my soul.

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Now, how do we do that, though? How do you bless the Lord? John Piper says, blessing

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God means to say good things about the Lord in a spirit of admiration and gratitude and wonder.

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Now, I would say yes, and I think David is saying that today as well.

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He's going to teach us today how to bless the Lord. How is it that we bless God? I mean, what do you bring to God?

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What kind of gift can we even give to God? He's like that rich uncle that you're like, man, it's Christmas time. I don't know what to get him.

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He has everything, right? Even in Romans 11, 33, it says, for whom has...who

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has known the mind of the Lord or has been his counselor or who has given him a gift that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things.

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To him be glory forever. He possesses all things. He has created all things.

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He claims all things. So what are you going to bring that's going to bless God? What does he need?

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What does he want? David is commanding his soul. Bless the Lord. Again, he's preaching this to himself.

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And why? Because he knows his heart is prone to wander. He knows his heart is fickle. He knows his heart is temperamental and nomadic.

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And we sing this, and we will sing this after we get done, when we sing prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, right?

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We'll sing, come thou fount. And so as we sing those, we sing that, preach to your heart, preach to your soul.

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Listen to this quote from G. Campbell Morgan. He was the pastor of Westminster Chapel, who was succeeded by the great

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Martin Lloyd -Jones. But in his own right, he was a great preacher himself. He said, the one value of these opening words is that they show us that worship is not involuntary.

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It is not automatic. It calls for the coordination of all our powers.

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The sanctuary, this place, is not a lounge. It is not a place of relaxation.

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We should enter it with all the powers of personality arrested, arranged, and dedicated.

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Then, and only then, will we be able to render a service of praise that is worthy and acceptable.

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So we're in a bind, right? We have to do it. We're commanded to do it.

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But how? If it's more than just worship, if it's more than just what we did, singing these songs, three songs before and a couple afterwards in response, if it's more than that, and it must be more, what is it?

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He says, v 'chol kerevai, which means, with all that is in my innards, okay?

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And that's the first picture that we have that he paints for us. That his praise, his blessing of the

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Lord, comes not just from the external, but from the deepest parts of his insides.

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Think about your organs. That is where, are you using those to bless the

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Lord? Because that's what David is commanding his soul to do. With all that is within me, bless his holy name, his holy name.

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Jesus himself taught us to pray, and he said, Father, our

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Father who's in heaven, hallowed be your name. Hallowed means holy. And it's not just his name is holy, that Yahweh is holy, but it is also how he is known.

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He is holy. He is a holy God. It's his reputation, it's his character, it's his honor, it's his fame.

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His pronouns are holy, holy, holy.

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Now then he moves in verses two through five in showing us the reason that we bless the

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Lord. This is that our blessing God is a response to the great blessing that we've received from God.

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Okay? And this is very convincing. Verse two, bless the Lord, O my soul, forget not his benefits, baraki nefshi et

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Yahweh, ve 'al tishke ki kol gemulav. Don't forget.

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Don't forget. As we've gone through this election season, one of the most effective slogans that I heard was that question, are you better off now than you were four years ago?

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And I believe David is saying this, he's saying, remember back to that time before you knew God's blessing, before you knew his mercy, were you better off then?

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He goes on to make a list, a list of things, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your afflictions.

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Notice the all that he keeps repeating here, all, forgiveness of all your iniquity.

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The word iniquity there means to bend or to twist, to distort.

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And it's not just like a broken arrow. I think we're just all messed up, just all twisted up.

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We're twisted up and we can't follow God's righteous standard.

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The Canaanite gods that surrounded David at this time demanded sacrifice, but did you know that forgiveness was not a central concept in their theology?

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No, these pagan gods didn't forgive. They were vindictive. They even got, they just got even if you messed up.

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So God here is, in his forgiveness, he's beginning to show that he is unique.

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He redeems your life from the pit. Think about that, from being caught in a trap or in a pit that you can't get out of, a pit.

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Imagine being in there and in the darkness and feeling the hopelessness of trying again and again to get out and you can't get out.

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There's no food to sustain you, there's no water, and you know that you're just going to die right there.

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That this may be your own grave. All they have to do is cover the top with dirt.

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And David says he redeems you from the pit. He pulls you out. Oh, the sense of hope, the sense of joy to be pulled out.

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And then he goes even further, he says he crowns your head with steadfast love and mercy.

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Actually, the word for mercy there is mercies. Mercy after mercy after mercy. And don't miss the word chesed there.

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Remember, I talked about chesed and what it means. It's this Hebrew word that is just a package of all these words.

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It means steadfast love, it means covenantal faithfulness, it means his loyal love, it means that he's never going to leave you, it means he's never going to be faithless, it means that he loves you.

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It's a very powerful word in the Hebrew vocabulary. So he's redeeming you out of the pit, he's pulling you out, and he's given you a crown to put on your head, a covenantal crown of faithfulness for you to wear, to adorn your head, to be worn and admired.

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It's a sign of his love to beautify you, your head and your face.

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It is part of your identity. You're one who wears the crown of steadfast love.

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It's been given to you. Many of the Egyptian gods during this time wore different kinds of crowns.

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They also pointed to their identity, who they were, what kind of God they were, and steadfast love becomes the identity of these people who

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Yahweh is blessing. And then last, he satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

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He satisfies you. This is all of these things, that he's forgiven all of your iniquities, he's healed your afflictions, he's pulled you out, he's redeemed you from a pit, he's crowned you with steadfast love.

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It's a progression of redemption, of salvation. Do you see it? And the last part of it is that it satisfies you, satisfies the heart of man.

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What can do that? What can satisfy the heart of man? I began to think about that, trying to come up with a picture of being satisfied.

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And the closest I could get was working here with Lanny in the heat last year, remodeling this place, and just working and working and getting so hot and sweating, sweating, sweating.

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And then you get that, you remember, oh, I have my thermos right here with cold water in it, and just taking a drink, and it just, oh, it's like, that's all

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I need, right? That's all I need. But guess what? I got thirsty again, right?

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So it didn't satisfy, it satisfied me in the moment, but it was not, it didn't last.

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He satisfied you with good, so that, or in order that, it will renew your youth, right?

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It's like the fountain of youth. It's what everybody's looking for in our culture. They find new makeups and surgeries and workout programs and diets to try and get it, but it's not there.

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Here it is right here, the fountain of youth. This is the thing. It's this picture of being lifted up like an eagle, right?

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And so, children, if you wanna draw an eagle on the backside, it's a great picture in here. Did you know that an eagle has learned to be lifted up?

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Did you know that an eagle can soar on the air currents, and they can gain altitude and stay aloft for extended periods of time?

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Why? Because they know how to be lifted up. They can cover distances up to 50 miles without even flapping their wings.

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Did you know that? It's amazing. They can go great distances with minimal effort.

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I mean, on the Reformation Day party that we had here with the kids, we were playing outside afterwards, and there were two bald eagles that were flying over the church, and they just kept circling around, and it was just majestic to watch and look at.

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And the satisfaction of the Lord is like watching those mighty beasts effortlessly flying, that it lifts you up.

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It is a picture that is also found in the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah 40, chapter 30.

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It says, even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they that wait on the

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Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run, not be weary.

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They shall walk and not faint. And not to pull that out of context, Isaiah 40 is this beautiful text which begins with comfort.

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Comfort my people. And then God begins to proclaim through the prophet

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Isaiah to his people and say, I'm gonna make a way for you in the desert. You're in exile now, but I'm gonna deliver you out.

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And then to, just so that you know the promises is sure, he says, who is like me?

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Who is like me? And then he finishes with this promise that they will have renewed strength, that they'll be able to run, they'll be able to walk tirelessly as they return to the

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Lord. It's so beautiful. Now, who is this God? You should be,

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David is trying to get you to ask this question. Who is this Yahweh? What kind of God is he that does that, that saves his people in that way?

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Verse 6, he says, the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. Now he is referring back to Israel's history here.

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Okay, I'm gonna show you how he's doing this. He's referring back to the Exodus when his people were oppressed in Egypt, far in the east.

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And remember that. Remember the location, far in the east. Verse 7, he made known his ways to Moses, the central character during that time of their existence, during that time of their oppression and their captivity.

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He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. Okay, how did he make...what

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did he make known to Moses? Well, of course, he revealed himself to Moses.

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He revealed himself to the gods of Egypt being more powerful than they were, defeating them.

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He made his law known to his people. This is how you walk, to be in relationship with me. This is how you must live.

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But it's more than that. Verse 8 tells us and refers back to Exodus 34, 6, the

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Lord is merciful and gracious. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in steadfast love.

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There is the second use of hesed, okay? But notice, it's not just hesed on its own.

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He's qualified it in abounding. The word in the Hebrew is rav, which means great.

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He's moved from hesed, just steadfast love, now to great steadfast love. Notice that.

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And it continues. But we have to go back to Exodus 34 and talk about this thing that happened to Moses, how he revealed himself to Moses.

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See, Moses, after they left Egypt, they camped at Mount Sinai, and Moses went up on the mountain.

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He received the Ten Commandments from the Lord. And just as he's coming down the mountain, he begins to hear a gathering.

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He begins to hear praise. And then he must have been shocked and terrified when he saw that they were not praising

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God, but they were praising a God of their own making. And Moses, in his anger, takes the two tablets and he crushes them and breaks them.

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But God, in his mercy, tells Moses in Exodus 34, he says, make two more stones and come see me.

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And as he does that, as he invites Moses back to show his mercy on these rebellious people, he declares to Moses, as he passes before him, he says, the

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Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for a thousand, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of their fathers on their children and their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

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And Moses quickly bows his head towards the earth and he worships God and he says, if I have found favor in your sight,

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O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us. Why? Because we're stiff -necked, because we're rebellious and continue to pardon the iniquity, our iniquity and our sin and make us your inheritance.

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The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

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This is repeated in all over the Bible, Numbers 14, Deuteronomy 4, Nehemiah 9,

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Joel 4, Nahum chapter 1, even in the book of Noah, Arjona, it is repeated.

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It is a prolific statement about who God is. Now, did you know it's so prolific?

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It's so amazing that other religions have tried to rip this off.

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They've tried to steal it. Did you know that? Did you know that the

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Quran, every chapter of the Quran begins with Allah, the name of Allah, the gracious and the merciful.

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And yet it's a cheap imitation. It really is, because the faith of Islam is not a faith of grace, it's a faith of performance and works.

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And that's why the Scripture repeats this truth over and over again. We heard it in 1

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Samuel 2, verse 2, there's none holy like Yahweh, for there's none beside you.

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There is no rock like our God. Or if we go back to Isaiah 40 again, to whom shall you liken

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Yahweh or what likeness will you compare him to? Or in verse 25, he asked the question, to whom then will you compare me that I should be like them, says the

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Holy One. And yet this is not just a declaration that God just hangs out there with no proof, no signs or no actions that follow.

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Look at verse 9, he will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.

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The word chide there is an interesting word. I don't even use it a lot in the English. But in the

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Hebrew, it means rivah, that is the word there. And again, it's a word that is chosen to send us back into Israel's history so that we can look back and understand a point, a moment that helps us to understand who

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God is. It points back to Numbers chapter 20, the waters of Meribah.

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Merah means water, rivah means quarreling or indictment.

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It is actually in a legal sense more than just a complaint. It is that place where the children of Israel in their journey through the wilderness looked around, they didn't find any water, they were really, really thirsty.

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And they begin to accuse Moses and Aaron and say, why have you brought us here? You have sinned.

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You were going to die. And God actually took that as a personal offense.

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And He said in chapter 13 of Numbers 20, He said, this is where the people of Israel contended with not

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Aaron and Moses, but with the Lord. They were actually accusing Moses and Aaron, like I said, but God was offended because they complained about His leader.

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He will not always chide, He will not always bring an accusation, nor will

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He keep His anger forever. In the Hebrew, the word for anger there is a long nose, okay?

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A long nose. I remember the first time I heard my Hebrew teacher talk about this, I was like, how does a long nose go with anger?

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And he said, well, you know, just kind of like a horse's snout. When they're angry, they wrinkle it up, right?

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And he says, and when you see it in the face of a man, the rage, you'll see the wrinkling of his nose.

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And here, David is describing a God who will not keep His nose wrinkled for long, that it's short.

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Psalm 30, verses 4 and 5 say, sing praise to the Lord, O you His saints. Give thanks to His holy name, for His anger is but for a moment,

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His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

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And then he says this, He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

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And when I read that verse, verse 10, I go, how? How can

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He not deal with us according to our sins? How can He not repay us for our iniquity?

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How can He overlook it? I know my sin.

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It's hard for me to overlook. How can a holy God overlook my sin?

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And then he goes on, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love.

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Once again, the third use of steadfast love, and it's not rav here, it's not great steadfast love.

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It is greater steadfast love. The word gabar is greater. Can you feel the intensity growing as he describes

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God's steadfast love towards those who fear Him? And then he says this, and this is probably why some people cherish this song.

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For as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.

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Now, I grew up hearing the analogy or the illustration that if you head in an easterly direction, you'll never start heading west.

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You'll just continue heading east. You'll never get there because it's an infinite line in the wrong direction.

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Now, I don't know where people got that, but here's what I know from the context.

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He has been referring back to Egypt. He's been referring back to the land of slavery, to the land of oppression.

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And did you know that the Egyptians, as they worshiped their great

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God, Amun -Re, He is praised in the hymn for His judgment of the guilty.

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And as a result of Amun -Re's great discernment, the guilty are placed in the east, and the righteous are placed in the west.

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It also could be a call back to God's deliverance from Egypt. As far as the east is from the west, and you made that journey, it was forever long.

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You were in Egypt in the east, and now I have given you a promised land in the west.

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These are the pictures. The psalmist is showing the complete scope of the forgiveness that we enjoy from Yahweh.

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It is complete. It is done. It is secure. It has already been accomplished for us.

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It encompasses our transgressions, all past, present, future, sins that are private, sins that are public, sins by omission, sins by commission, sins of word and deed and thought.

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Everything is forgiven. How? How can

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He do this? How can He forgive us like that? Verse 13 tells us how, and it also begins to give us a glimpse into how we bless the

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Lord. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear

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Him. For He remembers our frame. He remembers that we are dust. As for a man, his days are like grass.

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He flourishes like a flower in the field. You could paint, draw a flower on the back of your coloring sheet there.

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For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. Here's the image that David wants us to understand.

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He wants us to see a father's love for his children.

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He wants you to think about a father's love for his children, children who are in great need.

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Every child who is in here needs the provision and protection of their father, and it places us in the right context.

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It helps us to understand our place, how we can bless God as His children.

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First Peter 1, verses 14 through 17, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.

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Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy, and if you call on Him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, throughout the time of your suffering.

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We see the opposite to be true in Ezekiel 20, verses 21, but the children rebelled against me.

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They did not walk in my statutes and were not careful to obey my rules, by which if a person does them, he shall live.

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They profaned my sabbaths. Then I said, I'll pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness.

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So how do we bless God? Let's get back to that fundamental question.

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How do we do that? For God who has everything, is it more than just singing songs?

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It is, because David puts it in context for us, and he helps us to understand that it is by honoring

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God as our great Father, by living our lives to please Him. Not in rebellion, not in sin, isn't this what every father desires?

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Think about it. To have his children walking uprightly and bringing honor to his name. Parents, doesn't that just bless you?

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I remember after my second time in seminary, as we were sending out resumes and doing interviews,

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I worked at Amazon for a little while with my son, Isaac. He was just getting out of high school and was going to start his first year of college, and so he needed to make money and I needed to put food on the table, so we worked together at Amazon.

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Sometimes we would work the same shifts, but often we'd work different shifts. It always blessed me when someone would come up and go, hey, is

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Isaac your son? And I'd be like, yeah, he's my son. And they're like, man, he's a great worker.

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He's a hard worker. He's really faithful. You ask him to do stuff, he gets it done.

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And I remember as a father just going, yeah, that blesses me, really blesses me.

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You know, when you're out with your kids, your small kids, and you're at a restaurant and somebody looks over at your table and just goes, hey, man, your kids are, man, they're really well -behaved.

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Man, that makes a father, that makes a parent go, huh, that's a blessing, right?

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Now, I know our kids can have bad days, right, and more often than blessing days, right?

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It's a struggle, right? And God knows that as well. He says, I know your frame. I know how you were created.

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I remember forming you. That's that word frame there. It's the formation. I remember your formation, how

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I made you out of dust. And I remember that your life is so brief, it's so brief.

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It is created and it's beautiful for a time. And during that time that you have, honor the

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Lord. Children, this is how you can bless your parents, right?

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And be obedient to the sixth commandment, which says, honor your father and mother, and experience the blessing of that, that your days would be long on the earth.

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It's honoring your mom and dad, kids, like, look at me, look at me, look at me, right?

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Listen to your parents, trust what they tell you, obey them, and you will be a joy to their heart.

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Then he says in verse 17, again, the fourth time he uses this word, but the steadfast love, the hesed, al olam ad ve olam, is from everlasting to everlasting to those who fear him, right?

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So he begins with just the word, steadfast love, which is great just as it is, right? Then he says it's great, the great steadfast love of the

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Lord. Then he says the greater steadfast love of the Lord. Now he says the everlasting steadfast love of the

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Lord, okay? And every other God is a cheap knockoff, because you'll never find that anywhere else.

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And who is it for? Who is it for? It's for those who fear him, those who fear him, those who fear him, three times.

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They're the ones who receive this increasing magnitude of Yahweh's steadfast love. David's psalm is written for you today to hear and to make you yearn and long to be a beneficiary of Yahweh's goodness, to desire, to want to experience the blessing of Yahweh more than anything else in this world.

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That's what he means for you to feel. That's what he means for you to know. I know you know about it, but he wants you to know it in a deeper, deeper and more expansive way.

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And that's what good poetry should do, right? David says that those who fear

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Yahweh, he defines them a little bit more. He says they are covenant keepers. They keep his covenant.

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Which covenant? Covenant Baptist Church, which covenant?

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The last time I preached this sermon, my understanding of covenants was very limited, I'll confess.

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And I saw them as separate covenants given through the Old Testament, which is why I asked that question, which covenant?

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Is it the Edemic Covenant? Is it the Abrahamic Covenant? Is it the Davidic Covenant? Is it the Mosaic Covenant? Which one are we supposed to keep?

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But my understanding has grown, so I'm glad to teach this again and refer back to the 1689, which

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I've more fully embraced now than ever before in my life. And in chapter seven, which

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Bill and I went through this last week, paragraph three, it explains that the covenant was revealed in the gospel.

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The covenant is revealed in the gospel first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterwards by further steps until the full discovery was completed in the new covenant.

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Do you understand that? The further steps were the Edemic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the

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Davidic Covenant, all of these covenants that we read about. This covenant is called the covenant of grace that God gives and it is completed in the new covenant as Jesus seals it with his own blood, being the substitute for us that forgiveness and redemption could be ours through him and only him.

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That's why we're thinking about calling the name of our new church plant,

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Grace Covenant, because of that beautiful truth. But what does this covenant of grace require of us?

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What should we do? How do we be covenant keepers of this covenant of grace? Well, 1689 helps us with that too.

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In paragraph two, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the

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Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offers sinners and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him to believe that they may be saved and promising to give unto those who are ordained eternal life, also his

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Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. Did you hear that? He requires us to have faith in him.

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We have to believe in him. We have to put our complete hope and faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, which means that you trust in Christ's death to pay the debt of sin, the penalty of death that you owe to the holy and awesome judge of the universe, who is a holy

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God. And if you keep that covenant, if you believe in him, he gives you his

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Holy Spirit to help you in that journey. He's going to take your hard heart. He's going to give you a heart of flesh.

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He gives you his Holy Spirit to dwell within you and help transform you. And that transformation is complete and it is unstoppable.

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And now we can bless the Lord by seeking to do everything that pleases him.

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So, the conclusion of this beautiful hymn, this beautiful psalm, is an awe -inspiring finale that brings and recounts everything to an explosive end, much like that final massive firework at the end of the firework show, right?

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And he says, God is not just kind and merciful, but he is mighty.

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He is the Lord of hosts. He is Yahweh Sabaoth. Verse 19, the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over everything, over all.

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So the call to bless the Lord goes out of David. It flows out of him like rushing water.

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And who is the psalm for? He proclaims it to his soul, first of all, but then to all creation from greatest to the least.

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Know that the greatest of all creation has more in common with the least than the eternal

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God. So, angels and amoebos, they are more closely related than the uncreated

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God of the universe. So he calls to all of them, bless the Lord, oh you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word.

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Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. So, bless the Lord, even all his works, in all places of his dominion.

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Bless the Lord, oh my soul. So let's recap. We're to bless

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Yahweh. We are to strive in this place, commanding our souls and not forgetting the goodness of God, not forgetting how he has blessed us.

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Because it will transform the way you sing in this place. It will transform the way you live your life on this earth.

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As obedient children, we fear Yahweh in reverence.

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We long to bring honor to his name because we love our great father.

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Not because we have to follow all his rules, but because we love him. Why? Because he's so patient with us.

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He's so forgiving. Like a true father, he doesn't remain angry. And fathers, we need to hear that.

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I can't tell you how many times I failed in that area as a father, exasperating my children through my own anger.

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My nose was way too long. Yes, God is angry, but it's only for a time.

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And then he's forgiving. And I wonder if we as fathers are taking opportunity of these moments that we have with our kids at the specific age that they're at right now, and we are demonstrating for them the love of God.

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If they're seeing it, if they're coming to understand it because they're learning about forgiveness when they make a mistake and they do, that yeah, we're angry for a little bit, but we say, hey,

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I forgive you. And then we're also taking advantage of that teaching moment or other teaching moments when we fail to say, hey, can you forgive me?

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Because I am not showing you what your heavenly father is like right now. The call to bless

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Yahweh certainly goes to those who obey him, his angels, his mighty ones, all the ones who obey him, but it also concludes all his works.

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That is people who are running from God, people who hate God, people who you think they will never, ever bow the knee.

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The call goes out to them as well. And we're the ones who make that call.

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David is saying, call out to your neighbors. Call out to those people who don't go to church with you.

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Call out to the people that you work with. Why? Because they need to bless the Lord. They need to experience this joy, this forgiveness that is so encompassing, that's bigger than anything that you can imagine.

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I don't care how much you've sinned, you still haven't scratched the surface.

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And they can experience that. In our heart what should be for them, in all places of His dominion, to all who don't do

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His will, who do not obey Him, even they are called to bless Yahweh. So what do we do in this time?

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Now what? We better do what we should always be doing, which is giving praise and honor, doing the things that please our